Wednesday, January 14, 2015

Upcycled Sweater Beanie

A couple months ago when I started my new job, I started taking the bus to work instead of driving. This means, "Yay! No more winter driving on the terrible Pittsburgh roads!" but also "Brrrr! I've been standing at this bus stop FOR.EVER."

Walking to and from the bus stop plus waiting for the bus to arrive means I spend a lot more time out in the elements than I used to. I was never much of a winter hat person, but lately a hat has been a necessity (as I'm writing this post it's literally 8 degrees out!) A few months ago I saw this DIY A Beautiful Mess shared for making a pom pom hat out of an old sweater. Nick got me a sewing machine for my birthday, so this project seemed like an easy way for me to test out those sewing skills I learned way back in 10th grade. Think you'd like to give this a try?

Here's what you do!
- Lay your sweater out flat on a table. Make sure the bottom lines up in the front and back.
- Place your beanie on top of the sweater, lining up the bottoms. Insert straight pins in your sweater along the outside of the beanie, essentially tracing the shape.

- Leaving about 1/2" seam allowance, cut out your beanie shape from your sweater.
- Sew your two sweater pieces together along the pins, removing as you go.
- Trim down the excess seam allowance and flip inside out. Try it on!
- Lastly, make a pom pom (tutorial here), and hand sew it on to the top of your hat.

That's it! Pretty easy, huh? This is a great way to utilize an old sweater that you're not quite ready to part with. And it's awesome because you can completely customize this to your style (i.e. color, fabric, pom pom, no pom pom, you get the idea...)

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